footsteps
by horrorscopes
Summary: Ryou stared up at the foggy figure and leaned forward, face set in a mimicry of seriousness that only a child could manage. "I want friends to play with forever. Can you do that?" / Ryou is haunted by a malevolent demon and the souls of its previous victims. gemshipping


cw: vomiting, light gore

this will only be about two or three chapters

* * *

Ryou's head had been hurting all day, so when he gets home he makes a beeline towards his room and sinks in to the mattress, kicks his shoes off in no real direction and doesn't even bother to unbutton his uniform.

Pressing his fingers to his throbbing forehead he is stricken with the sudden urge to slip his fingers down a few inches and gouge out his eyes. Scoop them up with his fingers curled tight, snapping nerves as easily as gutting pumpkins. He could scratch the backs of his eyes, maybe dispel the heavy static just at the base and beyond his reach.

Ryou shivers, snapping his hand back to his side. He pushes down the sudden feeling of bile in the back of his throat and decides to drop the slasher films for a while. They make his mind fixate on things like that too much.

He isn't sure at what point he had managed to fall asleep, but he wakes up later when the room is dark and his chest is heaving as if he was drowning in the sea of his bedding. He hadn't even moved under the covers but he still feels too hot and the sweat sticking his clothes to his skin made him regret not taking off his uniform. The muted but unpleasant sensation of damp fabric is the only thing that keeps him from rolling over and going back to sleep. Ryou figures he should strip and brush his teeth at least before going back to bed.

He's regretful the moment he stands up. His stomach twists in a way that makes him lurch to the side. His hands fall to his bed to steady himself and he spends a few minutes standing there in the dark, letting his eyes adjust to the lack of light and his stomach to being upright. Eventually, he moves again.

His bathroom is small and has an tiny, uncovered window displaying just enough light from the streetlamps outside that he forgoes the light switch. The harsh fluorescent light would only bother his eyes, anyway. He pushes his hair out of his face to assess the tired form staring back at him from the mirror before shedding his clothes.

Ryou's got his uniform jacket rumpled by his feet and half his shirt unbuttoned before he feels his stomach lurch again and this time bile _does_ come up with it. He doesn't have time to move to the toilet and hacks up over his sink instead, muscles clenching violently and eyes squeezing shut. His hands fan out to grip the counter and he can feel what missed the sink warm and sticky under his left hand. That sets off another wave of nausea and he lets out a strangled cough that turns in to a gag, distantly thankful that he's at least hunched over the sink fully now.

Ryou hates being sick. Hates the lack of control he has over his body that tenses and purges without his consent. Hates the way it makes his body shake and eyes burn. Hates having to deal with it all by himself.

He heaves a few more times, trying to angle his neck in a way that keeps the hair that fell around his face from getting dirty without having to give up his one clean hand for support.

Eventually, nothing more comes up and the shaking subsides. Ryou stays hunched over anyway, regulating his breathing, until he's sure moving won't make the nausea reappear. He looks up and almost falls backwards at the reflection he's greeted with.

Everything is black.

Under his hand and on his chin and all over the sink. It looks more like tar than puke and he flings up his clean hand towards the light switch. He has to snap his eyes shut at the sudden brightness and when he opens them again the black sludge is gone, but the puke is still there.

Ryou makes a noise like a choked sob in the back of his throat before grabbing a towel to slowly clean off his hand and counter. He knew he could wash it all out, but part of him wants to burn all the fabric that came in to contact with his sick anyway.

He brushes his teeth vigorously, desperate to get the taste out of his mouth. When he finishes he goes to wash his mouth out with a handful of water.

He spits in the sink and a black substance hits the porcelain. It's thick, tar-like, bubbling softly. His hand shakes as he makes an aborted movement to feel it. He shuts his eyes slowly and turns the faucet on instead, squeezing his eyes shut harder to avoid the temptation of watching the black turn to gray turn to clear water. After a moment, he opens his eyes again to a clean sink and turns off the water. There is no left over residue, no faded imprint suggested by its consistency. So when he brings his fingers to his mouth and traces around his teeth to feel nothing, and brings his hand out to see only spit sliding down his skin, he can make himself believe it to be a trick of his tired, over-stressed mind.

…

Ryou never remembers his dreams, not even in flashes, but they start going like this:

He sits cross-legged across from a near-mirror image, close enough that the tips of their feet touch, and when he bends over to examine the arm thrust in to his lap he is acutely aware of the other arm tensing, fingers curled around something in the grass, despite the rest of the apparition's posture being relaxed.

He doesn't look to see what it is. He has a pretty good idea, anyway. Instead, he cups one hand gently under the elbow and runs his fingers carefully along the disfigured arm. He doesn't know why his touch helps, but it does, and he watches as his pale fingers flit across burned blackened skin to show healthy brown in its place.

"I'm growing impatient."

Ryou looks up through his lashes. The man in his dreams has a scar on his face where Ryou's is clear. There's no way to mistake it as a heat of the moment acquisition. It's deep, sharp and intentional and doesn't fade even the slightest when Ryou cups his cheeks. It makes even his neutral expressions look harsh.

"This would be easier if I could work when I was awake, too. Or, " Ryou knits his brows and focuses on moving his fingers smoothly from the crook of an elbow to the wrist, then back again. "Know that I was working. On this."

"You can't."

"I know."

Their conversations never get very far before they're interrupted by children swarming on them excitedly, all in varying stages of similar burns. They clamor for a spot by the two so they can better demand all their attention and they are only satisfied after Ryou has healed their skin and the mirror image tells them a story.

Despite the underlying sense of urgency that plagues his dreams, they're nice, and he hates waking up from them.

…

Cups begin to break themselves. One minute he sets a glass of water on the counter, and when he turns away a whoosh of air is his only warning before the cup goes crashing down, splintering glass shards everywhere. He picks his way across his kitchen carefully, toes curled up and trying not to let the frayed bottoms of his jeans push around any glass. He sweeps the shards in to the bin and tries to remember if he left the cup too close to the edge. He didn't think he had, but - how else could it have fell?

…

 _This is getting tedious._

He has to do something about this before it escalated.


End file.
